A mother's love
by stev2427
Summary: Queen Daria's perspective. Just the start of an idea.


Eleanor and I had been friends for more years than I could remember. I owed her so much – my sanity, at least. I would have gone mad without her to talk to when I first came to the Kyrrian court. She was the only lady who didn't simper and fawn, trying to gain my favor. Falling over themselves to offer to help me with my hair, offer me jewelry, betroth their daughters to my son.

The last one always angered me. The boy wasn't past infancy, still suckling at my breast, when those vultures began trying to sink their claws into him.

So maybe it's hypocritical then, that during Eleanor's pregnancy, we schemed that our children should be friends. But we did not care much. She would come for tea, and we would both laugh over our enormous bellies. Eleanor would tease me, saying, "You're Queen! You can hold yourself to any double standard you want to. If you don't want those court mamas to get Char, fine, but I will let you know right now that I intend to take full advantage of my daughter's charms and that she will gain great favor with your children." And she had grinned wickedly.

I laughed. Not a woman in the kingdom besides she would have dared say as much to me. "Oh Eleanor, how on earth do you know it will be a girl?" She was busy gasping with her own laughter. At 8 months pregnant with her first child then, laughing was not a matter to be taken for granted.

"I can tell," she told me. "God has blessed me a lovely little girl, and she will be as rowdy as any boy."

I was glad to know that as they grew, my children would be able to find a true friend in Eleanor's child – daughter, if she was to be believed.

Now and then my darling Char, 1 and a half at that point and very rambunctious, would be brought in by his nanny. He would place his hands on my stomach as he had seen his father do, and croon with the sort of aimless happiness that only a child can possess.

"You're going to have a little brother or sister soon, Little Prince," Eleanor would say. And one day she sat bolt upright after saying so with a loud, "Oh!" And she pulled Char towards her. He put his hands on her swollen tummy, then squealed with delight when the baby kicked him.

Eleanor and I hooted with laughter and his reaction. The boy clearly wasn't expecting to be punched through a stomach by some unknown being. Char began to hum, and I smiled at him, ruffling his tawny curls. "It's a baby, my love. Just like you! But you've grown into such a handsome little boy."

"And a very handsome young man you will be soon." Eleanor smiled.

"And Baby will be a great friend to you."

"Mathilda," Eleanor informed me.

"You can't really be sure that it's a girl. And really, Eleanor, to name your child after the queen of our greatest enemy…"

She laughed. "I know! Wouldn't it be marvelous! But Sir Peter will want to name her after me, I am sure." She looked down at Char. "What do you think, little one? Can you say _Eleanor_?"

Char bubbled back at her, still feeling her tummy. "La la… hmmm. Hmm hmm hm…"

I joined her. "_El—la—nor._"

The baby kicked him again and he shrieked with laughter. "Ella! Hmm hmm... no no. Ella."

Eleanor and I looked at each other. "What a charming nickname!" I said.

She smiled. "Ella it is, then. Thank you, Prince Char."

"My clever little boy," I smiled as I pulled him in my lap. "But honestly, Eleanor. What if it is an Edward and not an Ella?"

She chuckled in the middle of sipping her tea. "Well I will tell you, but you must promise not to tell. Not a soul knows, save myself and Mandy."

"Your cook?" I was perplexed.

"Take some tea, and be prepared not to shout it out," she warned. "Have you ever heard that a human having fairy blood?"

"Yes…" I said hesitantly.

"Well, I'm one of those humans. I have fairy blood," her voice was so low that I had to lean in to hear, clutching Char to me. _Fairy blood?_

"Eleanor… you're… so… do you have any magic?" I leaned forward, feeling like I was stepping into a novel. A human with fairy blood was almost unheard of in our time.

"Oh no!" She threw back her head in silent amusement. "Nothing so grand as that. I have only a few drops. But, it is enough that I know it's a girl."

"What?"

"Okay. So you see, when a mother is passing on magical blood to her child, she knows. I can't really describe what it feels like, I just know. Perhaps it's just a single drop, but I can feel it in the child. And when a mother knows this, if she concentrates very hard, she can affect the fate of the child. At the level of magic I have, it's not too too much. For me, my mother wanted a life of comfort, but one that freed me from court life. I believe that is part of what led me to Peter."

"What?" This was too fantastic. Few people knew the secrets of fairies. "You can change the fate of your child? And how does Peter free you from a life at court? You're here are you not?"

"Yes, I know. It it incredible, but it is true. And think, Dar. A merchant, though he may be a knight by marriage, is not expected at court so often."

"Oh," I gasped lightly. I had wondered for more than a year exactly why Eleanor, so full of life and almost silly with spirit, had married Peter of Frell. Indeed it had taken her from court, and I sorely missed the color she had brought to the dim castle halls. I relished these moments we could share in my sitting room as pregnant mamas. "But that doesn't explain how you know it is a girl."

"That's simply how it is with my family. One of the women in my line must have wished it along the way that the blood would only be passed to girl children. But she would have had much more magic than I. I couldn't affect our whole line that way. Another wished that her descendants would have skill with tongues."

I felt my mouth drop open. I knew better than most that skill of hers. We had taken language classes together, and Eleanor picked up the foreign tongues faster than the tutor could teach them. The man had gotten so frustrated, especially when she spoke with an accent more perfect than his on the first try of each new tongue. We would laugh about it behind our hands when his back was turned.

"So in short, Daria," continue Eleanor, "I will have a girl, she will be called Ella—" she grinned at Char "—she will have a drop of fairy blood, and now I have to decide what is important to me that this child have in her life. Beauty? Grace? Morality?"

"Hmmm. None of those sound much like what you would wish for yourself, Eleanor."

"True! Those are far too boring. I think for her I would like freedom. The freedom of a true and trusting love. She will have to marry one day, and her best chance of freedom is to have a man who loves and honors her, and won't want to order her about."

"And who can protect her?" I put in.

"Nay!" Eleanor laughed, "_She_ will protect _him_! And though I cannot control the trials and tribulations they may go through, in the end they will have a love worthy of ballads. Some may even be sang of them," her voice was teasing here, before it turned serious again, "And their life together will offer them both the freedom, respect, and happiness all people deserve."

"Ahh." I sat there with my mouth in a little O, processing it all. How poetic she could be. What mother wouldn't want such happiness for her child?

"Ahh," Char mimicked me. I looked down at the boy drooling on the front of my dress, thinking what it might have meant if _my_ child had a drop of fairy blood. Would that magic be a boon? Could it have protected him, ensured him happiness in the maze that I knew was political life?

"That's beautiful, Eleanor. But is it truly possible? Can you really ensure your child's happiness?" My eyes were on Char as I spoke, and I felt a soft her soft hand envelop mine, her eyes kind and understanding.

"I believe so, yes. Oh Dar, I know Char will be happy in his own right."

"I fear for him so." my voice was full. "The things that will fall on his shoulders, Eleanor… If I could somehow ensure his happiness _and_ his freewill, I would give my life to do so in a heartbeat."

She regarded me. "We will do what we can, Daria. You can teach him to be princely and to stay out of too much mischief, and I will be the favorite aunt that shows him ways around you, back into that mischief." Her face was sly as I looked up at her in reproach. "And while I have no power to dictate Char's happiness, perhaps, if they are such amiable companions, forced so by their mamas—" She winked "—a certain charming young prince may one day catch Ella's eye, and then his fate will be hers."

I grinned at her conspiratorially. "This conversation must never get back to them. Can you imagine their crossness if they heard we'd been planning their lives?" I giggled.

"Oh come! We are not planning their lives. I cannot and would not dictate such a choice of my daughter's. I am merely ensuring part of the outcome. They must write their own stories. But I do hope they'll be great friends. And this little one, as well." She patted my tummy.

"With such mothers, how could they not be?"

And as Char meandered about, occasionally climbing into one of our laps, we sipped tea and smiled into the bright future I was certain awaited us.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXX

But a month later Eleanor had her baby, and abruptly stopped coming to the palace. I had heard that there had been some sort of complication with the child, and that she had to stay home with the girl. And it was a girl, after all.

I then had two babies on my hands instead of one, and my little Cecilia was followed by Anna, and finally Christopher, so that I found I was often too busy to wonder about the life of my friend. We would see each other now and then at court functions. Then, when I was pregnant with Christopher, old tensions with a neighboring kingdom rose to the surface again, and I stopped seeing Eleanor altogether. Our children did not become inseparable companions, and that future we had imagined did not come to be.


End file.
